Tracer rounds and exploding munitions sent chunks of grey flesh flying like clods of dirt. The creature’s instinct turned to survival and it recoiled under the dark water. Erik kept firing until Mosan punched him in the side of the head.
Erik tapped the side of his helmet, the signal for comms damage. Mosan jerked a thumb over his shoulder to where the squad were regrouping on the right side of the river bank. Then he turned on his heel and walked away.
Timber approached and grabbed Erik’s head. Twisting the damaged component release, he pocketed the dead comms unit and screwed in a replacement.
“You hear me now?”
“Comms check, Hey-Ho-Kay,” Erik confirmed.
“Mosan is looking to strip you, man.”
Erik nodded. Someone would be held accountable for any casualties. Mosan would ensure that the shit landed well downwind of him, and that meant the current squad leader was going to be held accountable.
Three bodies were retrieved from the river and two more were upright but supported as the squad hiked up to the camp site.
Mosan waited for Erik at the perimeter and then signaled him to step out and stand in front of the kill-sergeant.
“Your buddy clean the shit out of your ears?” Mosan spoke quietly. Erik flinched. He had never heard Mosan speak at anything less than a shout. It was a chilling sound.
“Yes, Kill-Sergeant!” Erik barked.
“How many troopers in Squad Cable?” Mosan asked.
“Twenty-two, Kill-Sergeant.”
“Count them again!” Mosan’s facemask clinked against Erik’s as he yelled.
Erik executed a marching about-face. His boots striking up yellow dust as he turned 180 degrees. He scanned the survivors then turned back to face Mosan.
“Trooper wishes to report seventeen troopers operational and two wounded, sir!”
“Seventeen shooters and two zombies. Your little stunt decommissioned five of my squad!”
“Trooper didn’t know there was a predator in the water, Kill-Sergeant!”
“Is that a fucking excuse!? Are you making a fucking excuse?!” Mosan grabbed Erik by the throat and shook him like a rag doll.
Erik rode it out. Mosan would scream and yell and then assign him a shit-duty as punishment. Eventually, it would be forgotten and he could go back to getting by.
“Stand there. Do not fucking move.” Mosan walked away. Erik could hear him ordering the rest of the squad to set up shelters and stabilize the wounded.
After thirty minutes ticked by on the chronometer in his HUD, Erik wondered if Mosan had forgotten about him.
“Trooper Erik, about-face!”
Erik stamped his feet and turned in marching order. The squad stood in a line in front of the pop-up shelters. Mosan walked out in front of them.
“Squad Cable, you were twenty-five in number at the beginning of this training exercise. Casualties include Trooper Gilly, fractured ankle; Trooper Zooko, respiratory infection; Trooper Macowl, mental collapse. Three troopers dropped from the training exercise due to incapacitation. At no point during this exercise has anyone been responsible for the loss of life in the squad. Until now!”
Erik winced.
“Three troopers died today. Two more are wounded and will need to be vacked.” Mosan reached the end of the line and turned back.
“Trooper Erik was designated squad leader. Trooper Erik ordered you shit-stains to get across the river. Trooper Erik failed to ensure the safety of the squad before proceeding into an unsecured environment. Trooper-fucking-Erik’s actions led directly to the death of three of your squad.”
Mosan turned and started down the line for a third time.
“We do not tolerate failure. We do not tolerate incompetence. We do not tolerate fuck-ups!”
The kill-sergeant turned and marched towards Erik. “You fucked up. You fucked up and people fucking died. You’re going to have some time to think about how bad you fucked up.”
Erik’s rifle was taken away and Mosan dialed up a command sequence that gave him remote control of the trooper’s suit environment. “Reducing life-support by eighty-five percent. You will remain exposed until we move out. If you are still alive at that time, you will wish you weren’t.” The suit’s joints locked, holding Erik in a rigid standing position.
Mosan stepped back and then walked away. Erik felt the air warming in his suit, the stale taste of exhalation started to fog the faceplate. It would be dark soon. Outside of a tent, the temperature would plummet to well below freezing. With restricted suit function, staying alive would be a serious challenge. They trained you to survive, Erik told himself. Do what you know.
He worked on conserving the reduced oxygen, dozing while the light changed and darkness fell. The cold eventually woke him, and he shivered uncontrollably, unable to move or do anything else to keep his circulation going. His stomach rumbled with the rising need for food and water. He worked his mouth on to the nutri-tube. It was still sealed shut. Another function Mosan had shut down via remote access.
Curling his toes and fingers, Erik worked to drive the growing chill from his numb feet. The temperature continued to fall and frost started to form on the inside of his faceplate.
Red lights on poles winked in the darkness, marking the sensor perimeter around the camp. If anything tried to approach, alarms would sound and the squad would come out of their shelters ready to kill.
What is your purpose? Erik asked himself. “To kill,” he said aloud.
How will you achieve that purpose? “Be faster. Be stronger. Be better.” The fuck you say? “Faster. Stronger. Better.”
The mantra gave him a rhythm to tense and release his muscles. Faster. Stronger. Better. He imagined marching from perimeter pole to perimeter pole, straining to breathe in the thin atmosphere of his suit. In his mind, Erik marched up and down. How long had he been in the corps? Sixty cycles or six hundred?
Time meant little when he lived in The Mess, and once he passed through the airlock his life became a routine of eat, sleep, and run while getting yelled at. Mosan and the other trainers had one purpose. Make the recruits into killing machines or destroy them in the process. People dropped out and Erik never knew what happened to them. They didn’t go back to life under the dome. No one who passed through the big metal door ever went back.
Everyone thought the volunteers went on to glory and a life of luxury. Now, Erik thought maybe they were killed, either in training or in the endless war against the Helos. The recruits knew two things about the Helos. First, they were the enemy. Second, troopers were the only thing that stood between the Diorites and utter annihilation.
If the Diorites were destroyed, then humanity would follow them into extinction. Erik was fighting for more than the slugs; he was fighting for Noshi and every other shit-eater in The Mess.
Noshi. He had to stay alive for her. Maybe she didn’t care. Maybe she was dead.
Thinking of Noshi sent a fresh spasm of shivering rippling over his skin. The numbness crawled up his legs, and his fingers were dull as wood.
Being stripped, having his protective gear torn off so he could choke out in the acid gas atmosphere—that would be a quick death. Being exposed, locked in his suit, short on air and freezing to death. That wasn’t a trooper’s death. It was a shit-stain’s way to die.
It got harder to breathe. Each dragging inhalation froze his face until Erik couldn’t feel his skin. By the time his eyelashes were sticky with ice and he went back to sleep, he started to feel warm at last.
III
The flier skimmed through the mist, the controls adjusting automatically as the craft followed its pre-set course.
Noshi felt the subtle shifts in altitude and pitch through her seat. She waited in a state of metra, her subconscious expanding to encompass beyond the range of her physical senses.
Pizak’s training was intensive, forcing Noshi to react and push herself into states of concentration she had never imagined. She studied sacred etchings, consider
ed the finest examples of recorded Ka’tharis and found the wisdom in the symbols and accents of the ancient Bwalla archive.
In The Mess, songs and stories were passed on from generation to generation. The oldest stories were of the great expansion of humanity. Leaving the first world, colonizing and exploring a hundred other planets. The stories said the distance between people became too great and without a way of connecting with others across the void of interstellar space, humanity withered. Colonies fell to disease, disaster, or apathy. Entire populations destroyed themselves in wars over resources, beliefs, or ideology.
Then the Helos came, sweeping across the human systems and destroying everything they touched in their eternal war against the Diorites. Humanity lacked the resources and the will to defend themselves against the technologically superior forces who descended like wrathful gods.
After millions of years of evolution and progression, the flame of humanity flickered its last and went out against the infinite backdrop of space. Only the glowing embers remained, a meager few taken in as refugees on the worlds of the Diorite Commonwealth. Given space under domes where the sulfur dioxide atmosphere was kept at bay and the air was the right mix of oxygen and nitrogen to let them live.
The war against the Helos was all-consuming for the Diorite Commonwealth. Suitable worlds for expansion and terraforming were hard to find, and the two ancient civilizations clashed with a cold savagery that would not allow either side to yield or show mercy.
Using humans to fight solved many problems for the Diorites. It allowed them to send troopers into worlds with atmosphere’s toxic to the sulfur-dioxide breathing species. Worlds that, once the Helos were driven from the soil, could be claimed in the name of the Diorite Commonwealth.
Noshi felt the voices of the Diorites, a whispering murmur of a hundred billion minds. They communicated across vast distances, all minds able to touch all other minds. She was the only human they had found who could join them in the great choir of Kashoun. For Noshi, the song of creation was glorious.
Twenty seconds to target, the Diorite drone pilot reported.
“Gratitude for delivering me to my destination,” Noshi replied with a smile. Among Diorites, emotion was the vehicle that carried the truth. Gratitude expressed, but not felt, would ring as hollow as a lie.
The flier settled on the dusty plateau, sending up jets of steam from the frozen crust. Beyond the swirling mist and Noshi’s senses, the hab-tents glowed with internal lights. The flier transmitted a standby code to the perimeter defenses and Noshi made ready to exit the craft.
IV
Noshi sealed her suit and stepped out of the flier. The frosty ground crunched underfoot and she walked unerringly through the perimeter line and into the camp.
Turning her head, she sensed a fading life sign nearby. Human. Possibly a wounded recruit left to die. The hab-tents opened and the squad formed up in front of the new arrival.
“Squad Cable! Tenhut!” Mosan barked at the squad into formation. “Welcome, Herald,” Mosan greeted Noshi formally.
“Kill-Sergeant,” she acknowledged him in return. “Your squad is chosen. You are to return to the hub for to prepare for dispatch.”
Mosan straightened, the pride in his voice evident as he acknowledged the order. “We obey the governor’s command.”
“How many casualties?” Noshi asked.
“Seven, Herald.”
“There are sixteen recruits in the formation. The body over there still lives.” Noshi waved to where Erik’s still form lay in the cold dirt.
“Trooper Erik,” Mosan explained. “Punishment detail for dereliction of duty resulting in the deaths of three squad members.”
Noshi’s mind reeled. Erik?
“Ha- Have that trooper loaded onto the flier. The command will wish to review his actions and develop control strategies to avoid such incidents in the future.”
“As you say, Herald.” Mosan gave the order on the squad comms channel. Timber and a second trooper sprang forward and lifted Erik’s limp form from the ground.
“You are to return your unit to Hub immediately,” Noshi said to Mosan. The kill-sergeant saluted to confirm the order was understood and accepted.
With her legs threatening to collapse under her, Noshi returned to the flier. She waited while the two troopers finished laying Erik on the craft’s floor. Once they had stepped out, she entered and sealed the external doors.
“Cycle atmosphere,” she said to the computer. “Set to human standard.”
The air in the ship hissed and cleared. After a minute the console indicated the air was safe for her to breathe. Removing her helmet, Noshi crouched and felt for the sealing ring on Erik’s facemask. Removing it, she let her fingertips flutter over his face. So cold… He was close to death, his breath barely whispering against her touch. “Increase atmosphere temperature by nine degrees.”
With confident movements, she opened a medical kit and pressed a dermal infuser against Erik’s neck. The device hissed and flooded his system with epinephrine. A moment later he gasped as his body flooded with adrenaline.
“Erik…” Noshi whispered.
“Am I dead?” he croaked.
“Not yet.”
“Are you real?”
Noshi smiled in spite of her concern. “Yes, I am real. I was sent out to summon your squad back to the hub.”
“Sent?”
“I will explain, in time. Right now, I need to get you medical attention.”
“Medical?”
“You will live.” Noshi stood, leaving Erik on the floor of the flier. Returning to her flight-chair, she ordered the pilot to lift off and in moments they were soaring above the yellow clouds under a star-lit sky.
Erik woke up in a warm place with filtered air flowing over his face. He could move his arms, feet, and head. Sitting up took a moment.
Plastic tubes and articulated tentacles tipped with dermal infusers surrounded him and his skin tingled where they had delivered their loads.
“Noshi…” Erik’s throat felt clamped shut with dryness. He coughed, feeling his throat scrape. “Noshi?”
“Herald Noshi is not present at this time.” The voice came from somewhere.
“Where is she?”
“Herald Noshi is presently in conference.”
“What does that mean?”
There was no response to the question. Erik set his feet on the warm floor and stood up, swaying until his equilibrium returned.
“Clothes?” Erik asked the empty room. A panel slid open and he crossed over, taking a familiar bodysuit from the compartment and slipping into it.
He turned to the sound of a door opening. Noshi walked in and regarded him in a slightly off-center way, as if she were listening to his presence.
“Noshi!” Erik resisted the urge to spring forward and embrace his friend.
“Hello Erik.” Noshi smiled and moved into the room with confidence even Erik didn’t feel.
“What happened?” Erik asked.
“In what context?” Noshi smiled. “What happened since you left the reservation dome? What happened since I was also taken into the program? What happened since I collected you from the field training exercise?”
“You look different,” Erik managed.
“I am different. I have had an opportunity to learn a great deal. Much as you have.”
“I’ve learned to kill, mostly.” Saying it out loud left Erik feeling as empty as ever.
“You are a trooper for the Diorite Commonwealth. You fight for the safety of us all.”
“People died because of me,” Erik admitted.
“People will always die. What we achieve through their sacrifice is more important.”
Erik wondered what had been achieved by the death of his squad mates. “Why am I here?”
“Context is important to Diorites. If you were to ask a Diorite that question, they would have no answer for you. You need to be specific.”
“Right now, in thi
s place. Why am I here with you?”
“I have the authority to make requests. So, I brought you back with me. It was preferable to leaving you to die in the wild.”
“What do you do, for the slugs?”
“I am a herald for the Diorites. I assist them in matters of human interaction and strategic planning.”
“Strategy—that’s war planning.”
“Yes, and so much more. The Diorite Commonwealth is expanding. More worlds are needed. They have taught you this as part of your training.”
Erik nodded. “The Helos are our enemy. They seek to destroy the Diorites and the humans they protect.”
Noshi dialed hot drinks from the food dispenser. “The Helos are a similar species to the Diorites. They breathe the same atmosphere and have the same metabolic processes.”
Sipping his drink was easier than admitting to Noshi that he had no idea what she meant.
“Many suitable worlds can be terraformed to make them habitable for Diorites once the Helos threat has been eliminated.”
“The slugs use us,” Erik interrupted. “We fight the forces of the Helos for them.”
“We are dependent on the Diorites for our survival,” Noshi replied.
It was true. Without the Diorites providing food, oxygen and housing, humans would have died out long ago.
“I need to get back to my squad,” Erik said. “Kill-Sergeant Mosan will want to finish punishing me.”
“You are no longer under Mosan’s command, Erik.”
“I… I’m being sent back to The Mess?”
“No, Erik. You are being assigned to leadership training. In spite of your mistakes, you show aptitude for command.”
“People died today,” Erik reminded her. “Because I made a mistake.”
“As a leader, you will lose troops in battle. You will be trained to minimize those losses. You will be trained to ensure those losses are acceptable.”
“Can they train me not to feel guilty?”
Noshi reached out and laid a soft, warm hand on Erik’s. “You cannot know the truth of yourself.”
Hard Corps Page 5
